State health officials on Thursday announced changes to their COVID-19 guidance.
Indiana schools will no longer have to conduct contact tracing for state reporting, or quarantine staff and students who are close contacts of COVID-19 cases.
The new guidance from the Indiana Department of Health still requires staff and students to quarantine for five days if they test positive for COVID-19, and requires people to stay home beyond the five-day mark if they are still showing symptoms of the virus. Staff and students who come back after the five-day quarantine period are required to wear masks until their 10th day after testing positive, according to the guidance.
Schools are also still expected to report any outbreaks or case clusters to the state health department, and share information with family members of close contacts so they can monitor for symptoms, according to a state health department news release.
The changes in guidance, which take effect Wednesday, come amid recovery from the COVID-19 omicron wave, which saw the most cases and hospitalization statewide since the start of the pandemic. But since January, when the rolling average of statewide positive cases topped 14,500, the number of daily positive cases has plummeted, with the rolling average at 1,610 as of Wednesday. In Johnson County, the number of daily positive cases is less than 10% of what it was in January, according to state health department data.
The local positivity rate, which hit 32% on Jan. 11, was down to 10.6% on Feb. 9, the last day data appears on the state website. The number of COVID-19 patients in central Indiana hospitals decreased from 1,236 on Jan. 11 — an all-time high — to 489 Wednesday, data shows.
The decrease in cases also resulted in the state lifting the same requirements for children in the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration’s Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School Learning, according to the news release.
The state health department will end its Indianapolis Motor Speedway testing and vaccination clinic on Feb. 26, and cease services of its testing and vaccination strike teams, but will make mobile testing and vaccination units available when requested. Indiana National Guard members will leave long-term care facilities and hospitals March 14, and no new requests will be accepted after Feb. 26, the news release says.
People in need of a COVID-19 test can visit coronavirus.in.gov for locations, and people seeking a COVID-19 vaccine can visit ourshot.in.gov.
